


Video Games

by PekoIsBaby



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Background Relationships, But like. They aren't super relevant, Gen, Gender Identity, He/Him Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, Lotta video games, Semi-Crack, She/Her and They/Them Pronouns for Nanami Chiaki, Specifically Nanamiki Soniaki and Hinanami, Technically he/they pronouns for Chihiro but that's not an option so, They/Them Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, Trans Nanami Chiaki, Transitions from She/Her to He/Him Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, but not really, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 07:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30052329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PekoIsBaby/pseuds/PekoIsBaby
Summary: Chiaki has a proposal. Chihiro winds up with an identity crisis.
Relationships: Fujisaki Chihiro & Nanami Chiaki
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Video Games

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to Chihiro and Chiaki!! I had to write something for both of them, so I sorta... combined it into whatever this is! It was NOT meant to be this gender-centric, but then I had a fun lil thing called an Identity Crisis and needed to project my feelings onto characters
> 
> None of the characters here are the identity I actually,,,, identify as,,,, (I mean, I'm non-binary, but I'm neither she/they nor he/they and I'm also not AMAB), but I still drew a lot on my own experiences and anxieties surrounding gender! I don't know how GOOD this is, but I wrote it all in one day and I wrote from the Heart Damnit- 
> 
> That being said:
> 
> -No spoilers, to my knowledge
> 
> Trigger Warnings For:  
> -Gender crisis  
> -Accidental misgendering  
> -My very specific convoluted headcanons
> 
> Also, I'm not a gamer and thusly don't know a lot about. Gaming. But I tried! 
> 
> And I think that's actually it! Enjoy!

Chihiro Fujisaki didn’t expect to hear a knock on his door at nearly 2 in the morning, but he figured it was pretty par for the course. Pushing his chair out from the desk he’d been hunched over for an undefinable amount of time (doing schoolwork, mostly, kind of, if you squinted), he rubbed sleep and code from his eyes and went to open the door.

Standing in front of him was, bewilderingly, Chiaki Nanami, the girl from the class above him. The Ultimate Gamer, if he remembered correctly (and he usually did). She lit up with uncharacteristic enthusiasm when he opened the door with a mumbled “hi?” and held out her hand.

“Chiaki Nanami, class 77. You’re Chihiro Fujisaki, right? The programmer kid?”

Confused (and slightly offended at being reduced to “the programmer kid”), Chihiro just nodded slowly. “Yeah- uh, yeah, that’s me.”

Chiaki nodded. “Do you mind if I come in? I’ve got… sort of a proposal for you.”

“Oh!” Chihiro opened the door. “Sorry, I should’ve- yes, you can- it’s not a-“ Giving up, he silently held open the door. Chiaki gave him a little half-smile as she stepped inside and sat on his bed.

“Okay, full disclosure: This was initially conceptualized by a friend of mine, and I feel like there’s a pretty high chance it’s going to kill one of us.”

“Uh- I- what?” Chihiro was still operating on nearly-two-AM-brain, and wasn’t nearly well-equipped enough to deal with the threat of his impending doom.

“I’ve got this friend, he’s in my class… likes talking about Ultimates, kind of creepy but he’s doing his best-“ Chiaki held up a hand. “I’m getting away from the point. Anyway, he was asking about Ultimates cancelling each other out. Like, could the Ultimate Musician outplay the Ultimate Pop Sensation, for example? Can one Ultimate get the jump on another, y’know?” As she spoke, she used large, emphatic gestures to illustrate the idea. “So… I think we should give it a shot.”

Chihiro frowned. “Um. Sounds great, but you’re not- I mean, no offense, but you’re not going to be able to out-program me, and I’m definitely not going to be able to out-game you. Our Ultimates _don’t_ cancel each other out.”

“No, no!” Chiaki stood, eyes shining. “I want you to program a game that I can’t finish.”

Oh. “Isn’t that, like… are you asking me to make the hardest game ever created?”

“Yep.”

“And sic it on you for an experiment?”

“I was thinking more like a contest,” Chiaki countered, “but I suppose it is all in the name of science.”

Chihiro shook his head, almost tempted to laugh. “What kind of game do you want?”

“I’m really, really not picky.” Chiaki narrowed her eyes. “No visual novels, though. And nothing entirely open world. The game needs to be winnable.”

“Okay,” Chihiro said slowly. “So, like, Legends of Zelda is cool, but not Minecraft?”

“Exactly,” Chiaki confirmed. “I mean, technically there is a way to sort of beat Minecraft, and games like Zelda are story-based enough that ‘can’t beat’ is a really tricky concept to nail… can you get it closer to, like, Mario? Maybe not a platformer, just a streamlined experience?”

Chihiro sighed, thinking. “Alright. How about we brainstorm basic ideas, and then I can work off of that?”

Neither of them got any sleep that night (well, aside from Chiaki nodding off halfway through sentences on occasion). They ended up with an obstacle course of enemies, puzzles, and roadblocks that Chihiro was free to make as complicated as his sick little heart desired. After years of working on balancing games, making sure they were reasonable while still being challenging, it was neat to get to go all out.

He set a few ground rules for himself: Whatever he made, it had to be elegant. Sure, he could toss fifty boss-level monsters into one room, or create an impenetrable wall that the player physically couldn’t get over, blah, blah, impossible task, but that was boring. He wanted the game to be playable, but only by the most skilled gamer in the world. Someone who didn’t exist. Someone better than Chiaki.

He dove into the project, glad to have a distraction from everything else (schoolwork, the crushing weight of his own social anxiety, schoolwork, the fact that everyone in the school thought he was a girl and that he wasn’t even sure who was right anymore, more schoolwork). Things stopped mattering so much when he was programming. It was something he knew how to do. He was good at it. He was in control, and nothing felt wrong or misplaced. His body, his identity, his skill set outside of his Ultimate… it was like it all didn’t exist, and he was just an extension of the computer.

It was easier that way.

Chiaki got the package at her door on her way back from class. It was a box that had clearly once belonged to some piece of equipment or another, and inside was a flash drive and a note simply reading “good luck” in neat, small handwriting. Eyes widening, she all but yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind her, ignoring Hajime’s disgruntled “hey!” as he nearly fell of the bed in surprise (they had agreed to hang out that evening, so she’d given him the key to her room and told him to wait). Chiaki made a beeline for the PC, with more energy than they’d had all day, and slammed the flash drive in.

It uploaded a file simply titled :).

“What’s going on, Chiaki?” Hajime stood up to look at her screen.

Chiaki felt a calm settle over them as they clicked on the file. “I’m about to kick Chihiro Fujisaki’s ass.”

Hajime frowned. “Isn’t that, like, the tiny girl from the class below us?”

“Evil mastermind,” Chiaki corrected. “For this experiment, she’s the evil mastermind of the whole operation.”

“What’s happening-“ Hajime trailed off as the game booted up and Chiaki started through. “Oh. That’s…”

“Complicated?” Chiaki guessed.

“I was gonna say extremely scary-looking, but… yeah, sure.”

“It is,” Chiaki agreed, fingers flying as she scanned the screen. “If the kid did her job, it’s the hardest game in the world.”

Hajime snorted. “I don’t know about that.”

But Chiaki _did_. It wasn’t about the sheer mass of enemies, or the difficulty of the puzzles. There wasn’t anything definable, just a current of urgency and fear running throughout the game, that made everything seem so much bigger. The controls were easy to master but difficult to control well, the sound design was complex and robust but often distracting and fragmenting, making it hard to focus on the right path forward. It felt like a game two inches to the left of anything else she’d played. As her character fell into a pit of lava for the third time, Chiaki sighed out a chuckle. Chihiro had done pretty well.

It took her a little under two hours to beat. The victory screen showed a pixelated Chiaki punting a pixelated Chihiro into the sun, and Chiaki couldn’t repress a giggle.

“So… what, that’s it?” Hajime asked. “Chihiro can’t make a game you can’t win, so your Ultimate’s better or something?”

“Not better,” Chiaki said carefully. “And Chihiro hasn’t lost yet. I’m going to take this back to her and see if she’ll try again.”

“Why?” Hajime leaned over to look at her. “And why don’t you seem happy to have won?”

Chiaki paused, considering. It was a valid question. They liked winning. Still…

“It’s kinda like in fantasy stories, when somebody needs to be shown there’s something more powerful than them to keep them human,” she said slowly. “I need to know that there’s a game I can’t beat. I need to know that I’m not just The Ultimate Gamer.”

“But you aren’t just the Ultimate anything, Chiaki, you know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” Chiaki popped out the flash drive and made for the door. “But I want to see it for myself.”

Chihiro and Chiaki went through four more iterations of the game in the next few months. Chihiro pushed the limits of difficulty, adding length, adversaries, challenges, puzzles that started to include an increasing level of knowledge that he was sure Chiaki _couldn’t_ have. Still, every time Chihiro sent over the game, it was done within a day. Chiaki was, Chihiro had to admit, ridiculously good. It was almost insufferable. Still, he was throwing himself into it with everything he had. On some level, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was something psychoanalyze-able (blah, blah, inferiority complex leading to you giving up every part of yourself for the sake of others, blah, blah, boring), but mostly he was just invested in the task.

The other nice thing about the arrangement was that Chihiro and Chiaki started hanging out more. Chihiro actually liked Chiaki, aside from the ‘freakishly good at ruining all his hard work’ thing. She was smart, and nice, and oddly perceptive. She made Chihiro comfortable enough to drop a little of the ‘angelic’ persona (which, while largely real, hid a fair amount of asshole tendencies that he usually kept in the shadows). It was nice to talk to someone who he wasn’t scared of.

“Chihiro, have you even played Breath Of The Wild?” Chiaki was strewn across Chihiro’s bed, while Chihiro favored his desk in the corner.

“No,” Chihiro said. “I started it, but I kinda dropped off in favor of… schoolwork, and the like.”

Chiaki nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of my schoolwork _is_ gaming, in the practical sense just as much as the theoretical, so I actually get to play Zelda… a lot. I’ve done a couple speed runs for assignments.”

“Really? That’s crazy cool.” As Chihiro spoke, he noticed Chiaki grabbing her phone to check a text. Her eyes widened in half-panic and she bounced out of bed.

“Shit, sorry, I’m gonna be right back.”

“What’s happening?” Chihiro asked the question as Chiaki was all but flying towards of the door.

“I forgot to take my hormones, Hajime texted to remind me, it’s-“ Chiaki turned to see Chihiro’s expression. “What?”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry, it’s just… hormones for what?”

Chiaki blinked. “Like, estrogen?” Suddenly, she seemed to realize something. “Oh, did I not tell you?”

“I don’t… I mean, I don’t think so.”

“Whoops.” Chiaki gave a little half smile. “I’m trans.”

“Oh, that kind of hormones!” Chihiro felt a little stupid. “Okay. Uh, cool. You should probably get to that, right? I don’t- is it a time limit thing, or-?”

“I just know that if I don’t do it now, I’m gonna forget again.” Chiaki opened the door. “I’ll be back in a couple.” And she was gone. And... well. 

It was at that moment, sitting at his desk, waiting for his friend to come back, that Chihiro Fujisaki realized he had no idea who he was. Some of it was stuff he'd been asking for a while. He was a gifted programmer, and… what else? Did he consider himself smart? Kind? Funny? Or was he just too shy to have any personality beyond anxious? Did he want to be that? Who was he?

But Chiaki’s coming out, despite his best wishes, brought other things to his mind, too. He’d been hiding his gender - or, at least, sex - for so long, going by female for so long, that it got… sort of confusing. She/her wasn’t right - or, at least, he didn’t think it was - but it had gotten almost familiar, safe, like a hoodie that seems comfortable until you focus on how the seams chafe against your skin. Was that ‘right’? Was he more girl than boy? Sure, he wanted to be more ‘masculine’ (whatever that meant) but what did that actually mean? Was he interested in being a strong guy, or a strong girl, or something totally different? In the logical part of his head, he knew he wasn’t a girl. But it was difficult to distance himself from that identity (even as he used he/him pronouns in his head, even as the idea of existing as a girl for the rest of his life sent skitters of anxiety crawling down his back, he still couldn’t force himself to discount it). It was like a web. He couldn’t just escape it, because any move just tightened it around himself.

It was almost worse in the opposite direction. After so much time trying to return himself to publicly identifying as male, the idea that that might be wrong felt like… cheating, somehow, or tearing apart the person he’d been for so long. It was like giving up the whole ‘secretly male’ thing would be erasing so much of his history, and that was terrifying.

Chiaki returned to find Chihiro sitting at his desk, staring at the wall. By the quiet hum of a greeting, she could tell something was off. She sat down carefully facing Chihiro, and waved a hand in front of his face.

“Hey, you there?”

Chihiro forced himself to nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” He pursed his lips. “I just, uh… I’m kinda thinking about some things.”

“Things?” Chiaki prompted. “Like what?”

Chihiro sighed. Maybe Chiaki would actually get it. He wasn’t gonna tell anybody else, and… at least Chiaki wasn’t in his class. She wouldn’t tell anybody. “I… okay, there’s a lot to unpack, but first thing you need to know is that I’m a guy.” He winced. That sounded so… strange. Uncomfortable. “Maybe. I’m biologically male, anyway.”

Chiaki frowned. “O…kay? But you told everyone to call you she, right?”

“Yeah, uh… it’s going to take a while to explain, but I sort of… started to pretend to be a girl? To avoid bullying?” Chiaki didn’t respond. “Since I look so much like a girl, and I’m so tiny and weak, and… it was just sort of easier, I guess.” He winced. “It sounds bad when I say it like this.”

“No, it doesn’t… I think.” Chiaki frowned. “I mean, obviously it’s a little weird to hear a cis guy talk about… ‘pretending’ to be a girl, but you didn’t mean it like that, it’s okay. So, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that… I might have accidentally sent myself into a gender crisis. Maybe. Or maybe I’m overthinking things.”

“Tell me what’s up.”

“I… I don’t know. Part of me thinks I might actually be a girl, and then part of me worries that it’s just familiarity with the identity, because I’m really uncomfortable with people referring to me as she, but- but maybe that’s just because I think I should? And maybe if I got over that- I don’t know.”

“Do you like hearing ‘she’ in reference to yourself?” Chiaki asked.

Chihiro sighed. “No. But that scares me, too, because it’s kind of a… comfort blanket identity, I guess. It’s easy. Nobody hurts me when they think I’m a girl.”

“Easy doesn’t make it right,” Chiaki said gently. “If you don’t like it, then it’s not right. I think.”

Chihiro nodded. “Yeah, I know. But… I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been hiding it for so long, but ‘boy’ isn’t… it’s not wrong, exactly, just kind of… to the left, I guess? It’s a facet, but it’s more like half the picture than the whole thing.” He shook his head. “He/him pronouns are good. They’re okay. But I don’t… I don’t know.”

Chiaki narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want to police your identity, Chihiro, but you’re describing… kind of the opposite of me, I guess?” She smoothed her skirt in preparation to speak. “Technically, I identify as transfeminine, but not quite female. I use she/they pronouns, and I’m non-binary. Ever heard the term demigirl or demiboy? I like people calling me ‘girl’, but it’s not 100% right. Does that sound kind of like what you’re experiencing?”

Chihiro mulled that over. “Maybe? I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to,” Chiaki promised. “It takes a while to figure out. But you’re not broken, okay? Whatever your identity ends up being, you’re good.” She shrugged. “People are messy. Honestly, that’s a lot of the reason why I play video games: They’re predictable. Eventually, you learn the steps, and then you overcome the challenges. With real people, it’s a lot trickier, but that’s not a bad thing. People are complicated, and that’s a part of their strength.”

“Wow, that was, like… poetic,” said Chihiro. _They said. Chihiro, who is a they, said._ They tested the pronoun in their mind, and found that they liked it more than they knew how to deal with. “Thank you, Chiaki.”

“No problem. Lemme know when you do figure it out, okay?” Chiaki stood. “I’m gonna go to bed now, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chihiro said good night and let Chiaki out of his room. Slumping against the bed, he considered. He/they pronouns. Demiboy. Non-binary.

Maybe.

As they laid there, thinking, a thought suddenly struck Chihiro. What Chiaki had said, about video games and people.

An idea began forming in Chihiro’s mind, and they rushed to grab their computer and boot up Chiaki’s game.

Chiaki found the flash drive at her door. They’d been planning on asking her girlfriends (and maybe also Hajime, her not-yet-boyfriend, if he’d get his act together and notice that she’d been in love with him for months) to come over and start a replay of Zelda with them, but Sonia had plans with Gundham and Mikan was doing volunteer work, so Chiaki was glad to find a distraction from her own crushing isolation.

Booting up the game, they immediately realized that something was different. It was difficult to put a finger on, but something about the ways the enemies moved.

Chiaki was incredibly gifted at picking up patterns. They were the Ultimate Gamer because of it, after all. But these NPCs, impossibly, didn’t seem to have one. Each was different, unpredictable, wild under Chiaki’s fingertips. It was strange. Chiaki didn’t know what to make of it.

She lost. And then she lost again. And again, and again, and again, until they sat back at their keyboard in sheer bewilderment. What the fuck had Chihiro done to this game?

Chiaki spent hours struggling, but it seemed as though she were doing worse instead of better. It didn’t make any sense. Instead of improving in strategy, it was as though the game shifted to give her a harder time. It was infuriating. It was unbelievable.

It was exactly what they’d wanted Chihiro to do.

Chiaki went to see if Chihiro was in their room, knocking twice. Chihiro finally opened the door, eyebrows raised. “Yes?”

“I couldn’t beat it,” Chiaki said softly, eyes shining. “You did it.”

Chihiro grinned. “Yeah, I know.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave all the enemies a rudimentary version of this A.I. unit I’ve been working on,” he said with a shrug. “Basically, it learns from what you do, so the game actually gets harder the better you get rather than easier. I made the people more complicated.”

Chiaki snorted. “So, basically, you used a highly specialized piece of technology that you developed to win a bet against an upperclassman?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Nice.” Chiaki gave her friend a high-five. “I just wanted to congratulate you. I’m gonna keep trying the game, but… I’m not sure. I’ve never struggled this much with a game before. It’s… kind of awesome.”

“I’m glad. And… thanks. For everything.”

Chiaki smiled. “It’s no problem. I’ve been there. I gotta look out for my baby queers, y’know?”

Chihiro raised a hand to their chest in mock-offense. “I am not a baby!”

“Sure,” Chiaki giggled. “I’m going to bed. Talk to you tomorrow?”

Chihiro smiled. “Yeah, Chiaki. Talk to you tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> SHE/THEY CHIAKI SHE/THEY CHIAKI SH- 
> 
> I LOVE HER
> 
> I actually don't have a specific headcanon for Chihiro, obviously here they wind up using he/they pronouns but I'm mostly down for any interpretation (I don't agree with Trans Girl Chihiro but I don't dislike it?). 
> 
> I just. Love them. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
